PLEASURES OF ANGLING. 25 



voracious pot-hunters and inveterate poachers. Each 

 river has a warden, appointed by the fish commis- 

 sioners or lessee, and are paid a moderate stipend 

 (from $50 to $250) jointly by the government and 

 the lessee. This warden designates trustworthy 

 parties in the neighborhood as watchers, who are 

 stimulated to a careful discharge of their duties by 

 the lion's share of the penalties which may be im- 

 posed upon the violators of the law. By these 

 means, the rivers are, as a general thing, well pre- 

 served so well that it is the verdict, not only of 

 the authorities but of the most intelligent residents 

 on the preserved streams, that the salmon are to- 

 day many times more numerous than they were 

 before the rivers passed under the supervision of 

 their wardens. This testimony was more especially 

 given in regard to the Cascapedia, where I fished. 



The inhibition is, of course, distasteful to the 

 people, who have heretofore had free access to 

 these rivers j and they are not slow to give expres- 

 sion to their feelings. Indeed, one must have a 

 profound reverence for the law or an intense terror 

 of its penalties, who, with a scant larder, can wit- 

 ness a dozen salmon leaping from the pool in front 

 of his log cabin, without either " casting " for them 

 or anathematizing the law which prevents him 

 from doing so. A free and independent " Yankee " 

 would no more brook such an interference with 



